LIVE/DEAD Kits for mammalian cells

These kits combine fluorescent reagents to yield, in most cases, two-color discrimination of the population of live cells from the dead-cell population without any wash steps. These are ideal for high-throughput screening, imaging, fluorometry and flow cytometry.

LIVE/DEAD Fixable Stains for flow cytometry

LIVE/DEAD Fixable Dead Cell Stain Kits allow you to accurately distinguish live and dead cells when performing intracellular staining in flow cytometry. Additionally, the dyes in the kits react covalently with protein so that the discrimination is completely preserved following fixation of the sample by formaldehyde, under conditions that inactivate pathogens.

Retention of LIVE/DEAD Fixable Dead Cell Stains after fixation. The LIVE/ DEAD Fixable Aqua Dead Cell Stain Kit was used to differentially stain a mixture of live (left peak) and heat-treated Jurkat cells (right peak). Cells in (A) were not fixed; cells in (B) were fixed in 3.7% formaldehyde following staining. Samples were analyzed by flow cytometry using 405 nm excitation and ~525 nm emission.

LIVE/DEAD Sperm Viability Kit. Live sperm with intact membranes are labeled with our proprietary cell-permeant nucleic acid stain, SYBR™ 14, and fluoresce green. Dead sperm, which have been killed by unprotected freeze-thawing, are labeled with propidium iodide and fluoresce red-orange. The image was contributed by Duane L. Garner, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Nevada, Reno, and Lawrence A. Johnson, USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Saccharomyces spp. cell suspensions stained with SYTO® 9 dye and propidium iodide and analyzed using a BD FACSCalibur™ flow cytometry system (Becton Dickinson and Co.). Panel A shows the dot plot of forward scatter vs. side scatter of an untreated Saccharomyces culture, washed and stained with SYTO® 9 dye and propidium iodide as described in the protocol. The region R1 contains particles of the appropriate size for yeast cells; the forward scatter trigger is set to exclude debris in the sample. Panel B shows the R1-gated staining pattern obtained following analysis of a sample of yeast containing a mixture of both live and heat-killed cells.

Use our LIVE/DEAD BacLight™ Bacterial Viability Kit to identify individual live and dead bacteria along a chain of Streptococcus pyogenes. This image was photographed in a single exposure through an Omega Optical triple bandpass filter set.

Analysis of bacterial cultures using the LIVE/DEAD BacLight Bacterial Viability and Counting Kit. Suspensions of live (untreated) and dead (alcohol-treated) Staphylococcus aureus(Panels A and C) and Escherichia coli(Panels B and D) were stained and analyzed by flow cytometry according to the kit protocol. Using green or red fluorescence versus side scatter cytogram (Panels A and B), the bacterial populations and the bead populations were gated (left and right boxes, respectively). Events in the bacteria region of each cytogram are also displayed in red fluorescence versus green fluorescence cytograms (Panels C and D). Live and dead bacteria/mL can be calculated from either the fluorescence versus side scatter cytogram or the green fluorescence versus red fluorescence cytogram, depending on which one shows the best separation of the live and dead populations. The position of the live and dead populations in these cytograms may be dependent on cell type and gram character. Some samples may exhibit events that fall outside the defined regions and should be evaluated appropriately (e.g., see Panel D).